New Young Pony Club

Does anyone remember nu-rave? New Young Pony Club would probably rather we didn't. In 2006 they were key ­members of a loose coalition of new electropop acts that never quite coalesced into a scene. The confident quartet we saw here have upped their musical game – it's dark funk these days, a grown-up sound that makes the party-animal rave of their early days seem like the product of another band.

Singer Tahita Bulmer, perhaps the most glamorous person ever to set foot in this soulless north London venue, pointedly noted the difference between NYPC then and now. "If there's one song that defines us, it's probably this one," she says, introducing Ice Cream, their biggest "hit" (No 40 in 2007). Its playground-chant vocals and a lyric that invites a close friend to "come and dip your dipper" contrasts markedly with material from next month's second album, The Optimist. If Ice Cream got the most feverish reaction of the set, it wasn't because the new songs weren't up to scratch, but their adventurousness will take some getting used to.

Stone, full of shape-shifting melodies and cool detachment, was followed by the album's title track, a mini-odyssey of percolating percussion and voice. Lost a Girl ("about boys who don't know when they're onto a good thing") references the 80s synth sound of their first album, but with a weariness that underlines that the nu-rave party is over. Shambling across the stage like a toy with an ebbing battery, Bulmer was a long way removed from the euphoria of 2006.

This wasn't an upbeat show, and, apart from Bulmer, the Ponies were an anonymous, heads-down lot, yet there was something wonderfully vital about them. It bodes well for their comeback.